Development of a cell-elisa using anti-nucleocapsid protein monoclonal antibody for the titration of peste des petits ruminants (PPR) vaccine virus

Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is an acute and highly contagious viral disease of sheep and goats. Indian veterinary research Institute has developed a very efficacious vaccine using lineage IV virus of PPR being used under field condition. Infectivity assay and identity test of the vaccine virus are two important tests to be carried out routinely for quality assurance of PPR vaccine. We developed a monoclonal antibody based cell-ELISA for simultaneous titration and identity test of vaccine virus using 4G6 anti-nucleocapsid monoclonal antibody. Cell-ELISA developed correlated well (r=0.96) with the conventional titration technique using cytopathic effect of virus as indicator. Cell ELISA has a relative sensitivity and specificity of more than 97% compared to infectivity titration. Findings indicated that, cell-ELISA can be successfully used for infectivity and identity test of virus in vaccine samples.